The weather this year has been very warm and with little rain and the last two meetings at this course have been run on good ground, this is very unusual for Chepstow at this time of year so the going reports were for good ground leading up to the race.


The race was coming on the back of a great Rehearsal Chase at the start of the month where there was a very impressive winner in the form of Sir Rembrandt who demolished the field to win in great style. He was running again today and had many supporters.


As the day approached the weather became changeable and we started to see the rain so it was a bit of a surprise to see the going had only changed to good with good to soft in places, however Chepstow does get a lot of breezes from the Severn estuary and can dry quickly between the showers.


As I watched the King George on television on Boxing Day I hoped that we would also see a great race.


I could see the showers now getting more frequent outside I thought to myself the ground will now be soft and when it gets soft at Chepstow it is really soft and I thought it would be a stamina race again as it has been so many times in the past.


On the morning of the race we set off on the 50-mile trip east to Chepstow and the showers were already falling again. When we got to the course the showers were worse however we were not in the members bar for more than a few minutes when the showers turned to rain and then to very heavy rain and I knew then the ground condition will change.


After watching the first two races it was clear that the ground was quickly becoming very soft and this was confirmed in the third race of the afternoon, which was the first chase of the day. The very impressive Lord Maizey who had won at the course at the last meeting won. The horses were taking great clumps out of the ground and it was obvious that the continuing pouring rain was going to make things difficult in the next race The Coral Welsh National.


This was then confirmed by the announcement that Carbury Cross was being pulled out of the race.

We have been spoilt I guess in that the last few years the rain has been in the days leading up to the race and it had been fine on the day, today was very different however, most of the crowd was taking some refuge in the stands and trying to get undercover. As the jockeys mounted the rain was still pouring and as they went out to the course the jockeys were getting dirty already.

There was only a small parade this year maybe because of the ground but the parade has been disappointing since they built the new parade ring. The horses used to start much further down the course and parade past the owners stand then the members enclosure and finally the main Tattersalls stands however now they start the parade half way up members and this means that the owners and members get a poor view of the parade.
This is a poor and it needs to be addressed.

As the horses went down to the first fence all trotted down with the exception of Carl Llewellyn who these days does not show his mounts a fence before the race. His reasoning for this is that the horse knows what a fence looks like so there is little point and who can argue as his mounts seem to have no ill effects of this.

The horses came back to the start which is right in front of the stands and were milling around at the start waiting for all starters to get their girths checked and soon they were asked to line up and on the first time of asking were sent on their way with a rear of the crowd, The 2003 Coral Welsh National was underway.